Extracting Mr Saito
by Inception Fan
Summary: The team has been on the run since the inception job landed Cobb and Saito in limbo. But when a woman from Proclus Global comes, offering them the choice of extracting Saito or death, what choice can they make?
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: This takes place two months after Inception. Please read and review!**

**Disclaimer: This wonderful world and all it's characters belong to Mr. Christopher Nolan.**

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**Extracting Mr. Saito**

Chapter 1

The signature scent of gunmetal filled her nostrils as a bead of sweat rolled off her nose. She slowly opened her eyes and saw that she was in a dark and dank looking warehouse. It was hot, extremely hot and she tried to remember where she was when her eyes connected to the gun next to her face. She looked up to see a man, who automatically grins upon seeing her awake. He turns around and shouts something in a foreign language – Japanese, she recognizes, and is confused as to how she got there in the first place. Where was Arthur? Weren't they safely hiding in a rented cabin 50 miles West of Rio de Janeiro? The door on the far right opens and enters a woman, not much older than herself, wearing uncomfortable looking black heels with bright red soles. As she approached, her figure was more intimidating. She was slim and only a few inches taller than herself, but carried an air of confidence that was not only familiar, it was cocky. The clacking sound of the woman's heels ended when she stood directly in front of her. She said something in Japanese to the man wielding the gun and he moved his weapon down.

"Ariadne James. 25 years old. American born graduate student in Paris working on an architecture degree." She said it as a statement, not a question. Ariadne looked up to the woman in front of her and felt some sort of familiarity. "Where is he?"

"Where is who?" Ariadne's voice was crackled and dry.

"A few months ago you were contracted to work for a man named Saito to perform inception on Robert Fisher under Dominic Cobb. What happened when you were in Fisher's subconscious?"

"I-I don't know what you're talking about," Ariadne lied. Arthur had gone over this situation with her several times; she had to deny everything.

"Oh really? Is that why you've been renting out rooms in small inns and hotels in several different countries for the past two months?" Ariadne said nothing, surprised that she would know so much. "Two days in Bulgaria, one week in Siberia, four days in Argentina, six days in Mongolia, one week in Costa Rica, one week in Congo, two days in Egypt, one week in Czech Republic, three days in Saudi Arabia, one week in Latvia, five days in Cuba, and four days in Brazil. My, my you have been quite busy. So you've been taking this random tour around the world by yourself?"

"Yes," Ariadne nodded, hoping that they didn't also have Arthur.

"Is that why we've found you in the company of Mr. Wilson?" Ariadne said nothing. "Look, I know who you are, and I know that you were hired as an architect for inception. I know because I work at Proclus Global. I have all your information about the job, and I know that Mr. Saito went in with you and I need to know what the hell happened."

"You work for Saito?" The woman smirked, finally getting some sort of admission from the girl.

"You could say that. The point is, two months ago, that plane landed with two men in a coma, Mr. Saito and Mr. Cobb. Both the men are in our custody but we need to know what happened in order to try and help them get out of the coma."

_They have Cobb_, Ariadne thought. _But Arthur told me not to admit to anything._

"Fine, you want to do this the hard way?" The woman said something in Japanese and the door opened and a large, burley guard brought in a familiar face. Ariadne wanted to shout Arthur, but thought better of it. The guard dragged a handcuffed Arthur further into a room and dropped him next to Ariadne. He didn't look at her. "Now, since both of you are refusing to tell me what happened, I'm going to have to take some action. You didn't think you could get away with this did you?" The woman reached out and grabbed Ariadne's hair and looked at Arthur. "Now, tell me what the hell happened or she gets it." Arthur continued to look downwards. The woman shrugged and grabbed a pistol out of her back pocked and slammed it into Ariadne's face.

"Okay! Okay!" Arthur shouted as Ariadne let out a squeal of pain. "I'll talk, just don't hurt her." The woman smiled and tossed Ariadne next to Arthur. Ariadne looked at him and he gave her a look she couldn't distinguish. He seemed worried, angry, and tired all at the same time. "Going through your files, you found out that Saito was going with us to perform inception on Fisher. To perform inception, you need to go three layers deep. To do that, you need an extremely powerful sedative. What Cobb failed to mention was that once we were in the dream, if we died, we would go to limbo. Saito was shot in the first layer of the dream by the projections in Fisher's mind. We-we weren't prepared for him to be trained in extraction."

"So, you're telling me that he's in limbo?" Arthur nodded and the woman let out an extremely frustrated groan. She picked up a chair and threw it at a wall and walked out of the room, shouting something in Japanese to the guards. They locked the door behind her and maintained their posts as security.

"Does it hurt?" Arthur spoke, drowning out the sound of the guards talking. Ariadne rubbed where the woman had pistol whipped her. She nodded. "I'm sorry I couldn't prevent it from happening."

"No, it's not your fault," Ariadne said quietly, scanning the room. There were four guards total. Two standing at the door that the woman had just went through and the others were standing ten feet away from where they were sitting, each with guns in their holsters. "Mind telling me what's going on?"

"Proclus Global found us. We must have not covered our tracks well enough. They seemed to find out everywhere that we've been to. They have files on us, all the information that they got when they hired us to perform inception."

"What do you think they're going to do with us?"

"It's hard to say."

"That woman seemed pretty upset when you told her Saito is in limbo." Arthur gave her another hard stare in the dark lighting before turning and looking at the entrance again.

"She should be. She's Saito's daughter." 

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**A/N: Please review!**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Please read and review!**

**Disclaimer: This wonderful world and all its characters belong to Mr. Christopher Nolan.**

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_Previously:_

"That woman seemed pretty upset when you told her Saito is in limbo." Arthur gave her another hard stare in the dark lighting before turning and looking at the entrance again.

"She should be. She's Saito's daughter."

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**Extracting Mr. Saito**

Chapter 2

"Saito has a daughter?" whispered Ariadne in the darkness.

"Remember when I told you that Cobol Engineering had hired Dom and me to extract information from Saito but we failed? I researched all about Saito and his family. That's his daughter, Kimiko. But she's known as 'Princess Kimmy' because of her attitude." Arthur responded while taking in their surroundings, especially the guards.

"Oh, is she a spoiled brat?"

"It's more of a comment on how she spends her money. She was brought up here in America, that's why she doesn't have an accent. I'm surprised she's here on behalf of Proclus though; last I heard she had a riff from Saito because she didn't want to marry one of the investors and he disinherited her."

"Then what's she doing here investigating us? I would think his head of security would be the ones kidnapping us." Ariadne glazed out of one of the dirty windows and noticed a dense rainforest environment.

"I don't know, but she has all of our information so there's no use denying anything. She's probably already visited our families and went to your school to get more information on us. I'm not sure how she found us though; we covered our trail very well. She did miss a few places that we went to though."

"True, she missed Luxembourg and Romania." It was silent for a few minutes. There wasn't much to be said anymore. They had been talking nonstop for two months while on the run. He told her about how he got into extraction, how he had met Dom and Mal and she told him about her family and her passion for architecture. The only thing they hadn't talked about was the kiss during inception. Ariadne swallowed hard before asking, "Is she going to kill us?"

"It's a strong possibility."

"I'm sorry." Arthur turned to her and gave her an inquiring look. "It's my fault you got caught. I know we weren't supposed to communicate after inception and after we all had to go on run, you were the only one willing to take me with you."

"Ariadne, it's not your fault that we were found. It probably doesn't help that we are two people traveling together-" Arthur stopped his train of thought, seeing the distressed look on Ariadne's face. "But this isn't your fault. You were Cobb's responsibility and I couldn't leave you alone like that. You're new to extraction and of course you wouldn't know how to run or anything. I've been doing this long enough to know that you wouldn't have survived two days without me."

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_Two months ago:_

"_What are we going to do?" asked Ariadne once she sat down at their backup rendezvous point. Arthur, Eames, and Yusuf were already there waiting for her._

"_We aren't going to do anything. All of us have to separate. Saito's people are going to be looking for us and if we aren't out of the country within an hour, we're all doomed," Eames replied harshly, looking behind him._

"_Yes, I think it's best if all of us go our separate ways and we don't try and find each other again, at least for a year," Yusuf said eagerly. He had never really wanted to be a part of the team. Ariadne gave both of the men a startled look, wondering what she would do, where she would go._

"_That sounds like a good plan. You two go on ahead and Ariadne can stay with me." Arthur ignored Eames's wink. "Since you're new to extraction, you don't know how to live on the run, you won't last by yourself." Ariadne nodded, knowing that Arthur was correct; besides, it would have been strange to leave with Eames or Yusuf since she knew Arthur the longest and the best. "Even though it is more dangerous to travel together."_

"_Well, hope to never see you again!" Yusuf walked away, not taking a second glance and headed toward the terminals._

"_I assume that you already planned what would happen if one of us didn't wake up?" Eames glanced at Yusuf's retreating figure before turning to Arthur._

"_Of course. Your itinerary is in your bag."_

"_All right darlings, looks like this is goodbye." He gave Ariadne a kiss on the cheek and Arthur dodged him so he wouldn't meet the same fate._

"_So, where are we off to?" Ariadne asked as Eames walked away._

"_Bulgaria," Arthur replied, turning to walk in the opposite direction._

_

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_

"Great to know how much confidence you have in me," Ariadne teased, a smile tugging at her lips. She knew that the only reason why Arthur took her with him was because he knew that she wouldn't be able to go on run on her own. "I just wanna say thanks, you know, for looking out for me. Even though we weren't successful-"

"Oh how lovely of you two. You must have gotten rather close these past few months," Kimiko taunted as she walked back into the warehouse. Ariadne and Arthur said nothing. "Well I've got a proposition for you. I've just spoken with Proclus and it seems that we've decided to give you a choice."

"What is it?" Arthur asked tentatively.

"Finish the job, or die."

"Well that's certainly going to be a tough choice to make," Ariadne said sarcastically. Arthur gave her a pointed look and Kimiko raised her eyebrows at her snarky remark.

"We did finish the job. Fisher has broken up the empire and he believed it was his own idea."

"Let me clarify. I want you to get Mr. Saito out of limbo. We have plenty of resources. You're responsible for him being down there, now you have to get him out." Kimiko spoke quietly. It was obvious that she was concerned for her father's well being and despite their riff, she still cared about him.

"It's impossible to do. Inception was hard enough, how can we possibly go and get him out of limbo?"

"Nothing is impossible. What you're doing is an extraction, something you know well. You're just not extracting information, you're extracting a person. You'll have plenty of time to prepare and a lot of people to help you, but we have to know what happened in Fisher's mind so that we can figure out a way to get him out."

"We couldn't possibly do it; last time we had Cobb and he's stuck in limbo too!" Ariadne exclaimed. Kimiko walked closer and stood only a foot away from her.

"Then we'll just have to find him too. Think of this as a win-win situation for you. If you can extract Mr. Saito, you can also get Cobb out. And, of course, you don't get to die." Kimiko smiled evilly. "If that's not enough to persuade you, think about your families in the states. You really don't have many options here and we're going to help you out. Just say the word and we'll release you." Kimiko reminded Arthur much of her father and it seemed that she learned a fair few things from him.

"There are some problems."

"Oh? And what may they be?"

"A significant amount of time has passed, I would have to do the calculations, but we don't even know if Saito is still alive or if he's even recognizable at this point. Adding on however long it would take to figure out what to do, it might not be possible. Time is a strong factor against you."

"No, I think it'll be fine." Ariadne spoke quietly. She hadn't told Arthur much about limbo. She felt it was best if less people knew about it. "In limbo, you need to realize that you're in a dream before you'll die. Saito should just keep aging." Arthur was silent and gave her an inquiring look.

"How do you know so much about limbo?" Kimiko asked.

"I was there. And Cobb, he was there for a long time when he experimented the boundaries of lucid dreaming with Mal. You're going to need a very good team of people in order to pull this off. But no, it's not impossible."

"I'm assembling a team right now. A lot of researchers will be arriving here in the next couple of days. People who have done a lot of work with shared dreaming. You might even know one of them. Also, we've located your friends, Eames and Yusuf. They were particularly hard to track down, but I've got quite a good investigator. He always knows where to look."

"If we do this for you, and try and find Saito in limbo, which may take several years in limbo time, and we fail, what will happen to us?" Arthur asked, looking Kimiko in the eyes.

"The shareholders will decide that later on. I'm going in with you, so I'll know if you actually tried to find him or not."

"We don't need a tourist again. That's exactly what happened to Saito and I'm not going to risk it again. Our team shouldn't be more than five people."

"I think you of all people know that I'm well trained in the field of dream sharing, Arthur. I've been practicing it for years. Don't worry; I'm more experienced than my father was." Eye contact didn't falter between Arthur and Kimiko, and Ariadne stared back and forth between them. "Do we have a deal?"

"I guess we don't really have a choice do we?" He said it begrudgingly. It was clear that he thought that they would fail. Kimiko smiled and walked away, speaking in Japanese to the guards before leaving. One nodded and went to uncuff Ariadne and Arthur from their chairs, leading them with a gun upstairs. There, they found a few makeshift bedrooms in the offices of the warehouse.

"You stay here." He pushed each into their own rooms as another guard came upstairs and threw their suitcases into their perspective rooms. It was clear that it had been rifled and searched through. There was a set of bunk beds in each office, along with a desk with two chairs and a lamp.

"Is there a bathroom?" Ariadne asked. There was no door to her room, no sense of privacy. One of the guards pointed to a door at the end of the short and narrow hallway. She walked in and washed her face, cleaning off the drool that she felt on her face after hours of being sedated and taken to god knows where. She looked at herself in the mirror. She had bags underneath her eyes, a familiar sight for the past two months. She wasn't able to sleep, knowing that there was some sort of target on their heads, even if she had felt safe with Arthur. She left the bathroom and returned to her room or space really, and sat down on the lumpy mattress, contemplating their situation. There was really no way out of it other than trying to find Saito in limbo. But how would that be possible?

"Hey Arthur?" Ariadne asked, knowing that he would hear in the silence of the warehouse since he also didn't have a door.

"Yes?"

"How can we find Cobb and Saito if they're not still hooked up to the PASIV?"

"I don't know. I think that we will just have to hook them up when we go in and they'll appear in the same state in the first three levels. Limbo is actually four levels in, so I suppose once we go in the fourth, they'll be there in their true state."

"I hope it's that simple. Everything seems more complicated with limbo."

"Ariadne, do you trust me?" She was surprised with his question. It came out of nowhere and it didn't really belong in the conversation.

"Of course I do, you're the reason we were able to evade Proclus for so long."

"Then why didn't you tell me about Cobb and limbo before?" Arthur asked.

Ariadne was silent for a few moments before speaking, "Because I thought that the less people who knew and understood limbo, it would be better. There are some people, people like Mal, that would rather be stuck there than in reality, and I didn't want the same thing to happen to you." Arthur cleared his throat loudly. Maybe out of surprise or out of anger, Ariadne could not tell since she wasn't able to see him.

"Get some sleep, Ariadne; you haven't been for the past few weeks."

"I could say the same about you, Arthur."

"Goodnight."

"Night."

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**A/N: Please tell me what you think! And as you (hopefully) were able to tell, Ariadne and Arthur haven't gotten together in the past two months since inception. They've been busy trying to hide from Saito's company.**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Please read and review!**

**Disclaimer: This wonderful world and all its characters belong to Mr. Christopher Nolan.**

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Chapter 3

Ariadne woke up with a loud bang and loud shouting. Startled, she walked out of her room and peaked outside, where she saw Eames and Yusuf being dragged in. She looked at Arthur, who had also woken up because of the commotion. "Unhand me you—I told you my name is Warren Potter! I don't know of any Eames!" The guards threw Eames and Yusuf on a couch, where they were handcuffed to the ends. Both had the appearance of being roughed up before they got there. Ariadne and Arthur remained silent, watching in case it was possible for Eames to get away. The door to the warehouse opened again and Kimiko stepped in.

"Eames! Lovely to see you again, even under such circumstances," she said, smiling at him. Eames gave her a disbelieving look. "There's no use in lying; we both know that Warren Potter is one of your aliases."

"Kimmie, I don't understand. Why have you brought me here?"

"Because I know that you tried to perform inception for my father. I've found your other friends, Arthur and Ariadne already." Using this as a cue, the guards by the rooms shoved Ariadne and Arthur forward.

"Father?" Eames looked at Arthur, utterly confused. "Wait, darling are you telling me that you're Kimiko Saito? But-but you're an extractor! Why didn't Saito try and get you to do inception?"

"My father and I aren't exactly on the best of terms. Surely Eames you must know that most people you're on a team with are really lying about who they are."

"I think I'm missing something here…" muttered Ariadne. Kimiko turned around and acknowledged her. "Mr. Eames and I have previously worked together. On an inception, curiously enough. One that failed. I'm interested in how you got the idea to stick into Fisher's mind. There's time for that later though. You and Yusuf must be wondering why you're here, no? I know that you were hired by my father to perform inception. I know something went wrong and that he's in limbo. You four are part of a team I'm assembling to extract him from it. Proclus Global is suffering without his leadership and they've hired me to find out what happened and to get him out."

"So you've decided to capture us and do this? Performance under duress, love, is not always the best way to get a job done."

"On the contrary, Eames, I find that it's actually the best way to work."

"Is there any sort of compensation from this job?" asked Yusuf, speaking for the first time.

"Well you either perform the job or die, so I guess that your compensation is your life. How does that sound?" Yusuf looked away, clearly upset. "Don't worry, you won't be going under again; you will be making the same compounds you did for the inception on Robert Fisher and helping my team create a new, more stable form of drug we can use." Yusuf looked relieved. "You'll still have to remain here until we finish, and if we succeed, you may all go on free. If not, I can't really say what the board will want to do with you.

"Now, let me introduce you to some of the people you will be working with now." The door opened, and several different men and women walked in. "This is Dr. Kantanabe, he has done a lot of research in the field of dream sharing and has pushed the boundaries and limits within it. He has been to limbo several times and back." A young man with black hair and glasses, wearing a lab coat stepped forward and nodded at everyone. "This is Madam Girard; she is also a chemist who tailors compounds for different government agencies that perform extraction." A woman in her 40s stepped forward. She was thin and frail looking, with light brown hair. "This is Senor Ramon, who also does research on extraction." A man with tanned skin and dark eyes stepped forward. "This is Miss Popov, she was previously part of multiple teams that performed failed inceptions." A younger woman with blonde hair nodded to everyone. Eames looked up at her with familiarity. "And this is Mr. Kagame, he is a skilled architect who builds in the real world as well as the dream world." An older, dark-skinned gentleman stepped forward. His face with scared and he looked like a man who had been through many struggles.

"In order for us to properly extract my father from limbo, we need to know what happened and we need to know every single detail. Don't leave out a thing." Ariadne and Arthur were shoved into the couch next to Eames and Yusuf. "Anyone care to start?" Each person looked hesitant, but it was Yusuf who began speaking first.

"We planned to go down three levels in order to get the idea deep enough into Fisher's mind. In order to stabilize that many dreams-within-dreams, I had to use a sedative as well as the usual somnacin compound that I use. When you use a sedative in the dream state, if you die, you fall into limbo and do not wake up. That is what happened to Saito. We went into the first layer as planned, but we were ambushed by Fisher's security because he was trained. Arthur here failed to find that particularly important detail." Arthur shot Yusuf a glare. "Saito was shot, but we decided to continue on with the plan so that we wouldn't all end up in limbo because Fisher's security was teaming up on us. I was the dreamer on the first level, so I'm not sure what happened after that other than the merry car chase that I went on."

"Forgive me, but I had always thought that you were the best at what you did," Said Miss Popov, speaking in a rough Russian accent, directed at Arthur.

"It didn't come up in the research," Arthur said calmly, as he said to Cobb before. Ariadne looked at the young woman again. She had a sort of teasing smile on her face. She was younger than a lot of the others on the team, but older than Ariadne and Kimiko. Ariadne wondered why she was even on this team if she was part of so many failed inceptions. "The second level was my dream. Cobb used the Mr. Charles gambit, which was designed to get the mark to work with us. Cobb was able to convince Fisher that he was part of his subconscious security and Eames planted the idea early on that Browning, his godfather, was the one who had plotted that scheme."

"That's quite impressive." Kimiko nodded with respect.

"Well darling, I am a damn good judge of character," said Eames to Kimiko. She rolled her eyes, clearly used to Eames and said, "I was talking about the Mr. Charles gambit." Eames expectedly looked put out by this. Ariadne continued the story, since Arthur wasn't there at the third level.

"We got Fisher to break into his own subconscious to find the truth—the idea that we wanted him to figure out on his own. But Mal, a shade of Cobb's deceased wife showed up and shot him. By that time Saito was dying and couldn't hold on much longer so we went down another level—to limbo to get Fisher out. Cobb confronted Mal and decided to stay in limbo and find Saito while I gave Fisher the kick and he was able to get to that final level of inception—"

"And that was?"

"For Fisher to find out that his father had loved him and was disappointed that he tried to be like him."

Kimiko looked troubled. She looked at the newer members of the team before she spoke. "Is there any way that we can go and extract him? I assume that Cobb hasn't found my father yet and they've been down there for quite some time. Two months down there…"

"With dream sharing nothing is impossible, but the gravity of this request and the dangers that come along with it may be too much to ask," replied Dr. Kantanabe.

"I know what can happen with limbo, and I am not willing to take these risks. Being trapped down there for what seems like an eternity, where so much can go wrong? No! I'm sorry Miss Saito but you cannot ask this of any of us!" exclaimed Senior Ramon.

Kimiko slowly turned around and frowned at Ramon. "Need I remind you that you are under contract to be a part of this team Senior Ramon? You knew the dangers going into this!" She signaled the guards, who approached Ramon. "I do not accept weakness Ramon, and as far as I am concerned, fear makes you weak. Get out of my sight!" The guards grabbed Ramon and dragged him out. "Now, before we continue, do any of you disagree to this?"

"No. The opportunity to explore limbo, the infinite possibilities here, I have to be a part of this team," replied Dr. Kantanabe.

"I want to know what went wrong in all of the inceptions that I have tried. I would like to continue to learn and be a part of this team," said Miss Popov, with a light Russian accent.

"I have actually been working on a compound safe to explore a third level of dreaming so I have no objections to this," said Madam Girard. Kagame shook his head. Kimiko nodded with everyone's statements.

"Let's get to work."

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A/N: I know it's been awhile. This chapter is filler, but it's necessary to continue the story. All the new characters brought into this story aren't really characters that will be incorporated into the story long term, but they are important in the planning of the extraction, so you'll see that later on. Reviews are always appreciated and help me decide what other factors I should include into this story!


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